Zack Fair week 2017
by ectocosme
Summary: cross-posted from ao3. as the title says, ficlets for the Zack Fair week from 2017


**September** **14** **DAY 2: ambition**

Zack discovered early on that some sorts of ambitions weren't well seen at Gongaga. Power, fame and wealth were frowned upon. Love and closeness to the community celebrated. Zack's ambition was to be a hero,a SOLDIER, and somehow people here associated it with fame and wealth, whatever Zack tried to tell them. He wasn't good with words, couldn't explain exactly what a hero was in his head. For the community, he was a black sheep to put back on track.

Leaving Gongaga was both the best and the worst for his dream. If he left for his personal gain, wasn't he giving reason to the community? Zack found out it felt so good to be alone, to met new people and new communities, that he didn't care about the old peeps at Gongaga. For all its flaws, Midgar was so much easier to live in.

And there was Angeal. He didn't chastise Zack for his ambition. He encouraged him. Helped him grow and learn about more things than stances and military strategies. He also finally gave another word to Zack. Something he'd associated with heroes, the helpful and loyal heroes, since the beginning, without having the exact word.

"Embrace your dreams. If you want to be a hero you need to have dreams...and honor."

* * *

 **September** **15** **DAY 3: words**

Zack always regretted being unable to find the words that would've helped Angeal. Throwing his emotion at Angeal's head would have been more helpful than what he said in front of the man. For days and weeks, he relived the fateful day, changing his words, his approach until he managed to help Angeal. Then Sephiroth was added to the pile of people he couldn't help. When he wasn't experimented on or tending to his escape plan, he had a lot of time to think about his regrets.

He should have been more present, should have said this instead of that. He should.

If he had been more eloquent, finding the words that struck Cloud, that reached him, he 'd woken up sooner...

Genesis' last fight appeased Zack a bit, but deep down he felt like he cheated, spitting back words Genesis lived by and not finding his own words.

Ironically, death helped him the most in surpassing this barrier between his mind and his mouth – since he had no mouth – and let him give his raw emotion as encouragement to his interlocutor. His words always reached Cloud now, but most importantly, their essence.

* * *

 **September 17 || Day 5: On the Run**

On Shinra's forms, Zack was marked as dumb. At least the psychological evaluation translated like that.

At first, when Zack entered the SOLDIER program, his professors in Military strategy and other intellectual classes Zack forgot the name the second he stepped outside at the last day, his teachers were unanimous: he was exceptional with a sword in his hands, growing better each day at hand to hand, but a lost cause for anything demanding a brain.

Though, Zack passed the SOLDIER's exam. And then he realised he needed to know those things he hated to become a Second and then a First. Angeal found him in the library, crying on manuals. Pretty embarrassing first meeting for Zack. But Angeal, his angel, found a teaching manner that worked for him, through Genesis' own childhood problems.

Zack moved up the ladder so quickly, Shinra's calendar applied to new SOLDIER – tests, psych eval and all – was thrown off. With that, Zack 's psych eval listed him as "medium-low" on the intelligence level still. A psych evaluation Turks followed _precisely_ when predicting the escaped experiment Zack Fair's road and next moves.

On the run, Zack felt like cutting through butter, there was no resistance to his walk to Midgar. Well, except for Genesis. But the general feeling Zack had was that he wasn't hunted.

"Damn, they became so bad at their job," Zack said to the mako comatose Cloud in his arms. "It's that, or they're purposefully missing me."

Midgar sketched out on the horizon from their natural platform. Only the cliff and the desert stood in front of them. No sounds of helicopters or footsteps of troopers – or SOLDIERs – coming to stop them.

"Zack?"

The name was butchered in Cloud's mouth, but Zack instantly looked down at his charge. Mako blue eyes stared back with awareness. Zack felt like crying of relief, but he smiled and hit gently Cloud's forehead with his.

"We're almost there, chocobo-head. Hang on."


End file.
